


Quad

by Capucine



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Space, Angst, Broken Bones, Fights, Gen, Pain, Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-26 07:27:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9873305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capucine/pseuds/Capucine
Summary: Dick can't help but think assigning them all to the same quad of Space Walkers was a terrible idea.





	

**Author's Note:**

> An old one I found that I decided to post. Enjoy?

The scream was nothing new, but still frightening all the same.

Or, rather, Dick should say it was not terribly unusual, but to hear it come out of Tim’s mouth was one hundred kinds of frightening.

He cursed and doubled back, seizing Jason to bring him along, dodging the projectiles hurled at him as the whirrs and clicks of the machine tried very hard to drown Tim out, where he was in far too much pain not to scream. 

He found him, nearly knocked heads with Jason getting there. “For fuck’s sake--” was what Jason growled, looking like he wanted to tear out his hair—probably would have if he hadn’t been wearing his helmet. And not in a petty way, either.

Tim’s leg was solidly crushed between the sides of a trap door that apparently decided to slam shut on him.

Where his visor didn’t cover his eyes, and the rest of his suit didn’t cover his skin, Dick could see the pallor of his skin. The shock alone was formidable, and Dick quickly sank down to his level, getting his attention. “Hey, hey Tim, Jay and I are gonna get you out, okay?”

Tim’s breaths were coming frantically, but he managed to nod.

Jason wordlessly slammed his firearm into the space. The thing was enormous, a little thicker than Tim’s leg, and Jason was trying very hard to jam it in there so that Tim’s leg could be freed.

Dick had no doubts about it being broken, and badly so.

He directed Tim’s shaking arms around his neck, saying, “Hold on really tight and don’t let go, okay? This’s—well, I’m not going to lie, it’s going to hurt like hell, but we can get you to safety.”

The choked sob from Tim, and the tightening of his arms, said that Jason had wedged out enough space, letting Tim feel his leg better. 

“1, 2, 3!” Dick counted, and then yanked Tim out. Tim was barely through screaming in agony before Jason had taken him and was dashing. Dick was quickly leading in the charge, making sure they didn’t hit anything else, as they had to get out. If they didn’t, Tim definitely wasn’t getting help, and they might not either, should they end up needing it.

They made it.

“Exercise: Over. Status: Failed.”

The sliding gray doors were closed behind them, just as Damian joined them, looking down his nose at Tim. “Well, I can see _why_ we failed.”

And Dick was suddenly very glad Jason was the one holding Tim, because Jason looked like he might want to murder Damian. “Yeah? Is it because you’re a little bastard piece of shit--”

“I know you don’t know any bigger words, but surely--”

Jason cut off Damian’s snide remark by shouting at him, “ _What part of team-building trust exercise don’t you understand?!_ ”

Damian snarled back, flushing red, “It’s not my fault Drake was too stupid to avoid a trap door!”

“Damian,” Dick said sharply, “You were supposed to have his back. Tim couldn’t _see_ out there--”

“I could avoid a trap door while blinded!” Damian snapped back.

“Yeah? Let’s set your visor on total block out and send you back out there, then!” Jason said, starting to make a menacing movement before the hitched breath from Tim set him still. 

Damian snarled back, wordless, clearly ready to fight Jason, and Dick thought, not for the first time, that their ‘luck of the draw’ sucked. That they were probably going to die the instant they set foot in the field.

“Thank you, boys,” Came the crisp voice over the speaker. God, Dick hated her.

Sophia Gotham ran this thing, this training program for the new generation of space walkers. For those who would be flung to the stars and expected to survive, to bring back something of value. To either entertain the masses, or, stars be damned, find a space. Somewhere that nothing lived that humans could live.

“Hey, Tim needs treatment ten minutes ago,” Jason snapped at the speaker. It didn’t make a lot of sense, since it wasn’t even where Sophia was, but he was like that. Sometimes, Dick liked that about him.

“Your quad has performed abysmally,” Sophia Gotham continued, sharp voice, and Dick swore she just wanted to kill them. There was a saying that if you wanted to die, Gotham was the one to come to, and Dick thought that it might have been exaggerated. Well, only some, clearly. 

He could hear Jason grinding his teeth.

“It seems your cohesion is...less than cohesive, to say the least. The younger two of your quad refuse to work together, and this is causing problems.”

“Can we get the lecture later?!” Jason demanded.

“You will listen, or I will have to start over,” came the response, “You aren’t learning from your past mistakes. This isn’t the first time Member 4 has nearly caused Member 3’s death, nor is it the first time that Member 3 refused to be agreeable. Nor is it the first time Member 2 has failed to refrain from cursing and directing negative language at me. Member 1, you are doing adequately on your own, but your leadership is lacking.”

Dick wondered how she could call it lacking when he still managing to take two blinded members out of there alive, one with a broken leg, but he chose to keep his mouth shut.

Tim needed to get patched up.

His face was pale and he looked like he would bite through his goddamn lip. His one hand was clenched so tightly in Jason’s shirt that it looked like it was trying to meld with the fabric, and the agonized, hitching sob he tried so hard to contain told Dick what he needed to know.

There was a disappointed tsk. “You may go now.”

They left, Jason grumbling to himself.

Tim was stitched up fast, the machine glowing blue around his leg, him letting out a choking sound, and the crunch of the bone being put back in place and instantly healing made him outright scream, clenching Dick’s hand like he might break it.

He was still pale after that, but good as new. And his eyes took a dark turn towards Damian. “The fuck is wrong with you, get back here!”

And now Tim was chasing Damian, who shouted back, “You said my directions were asinine, why should I have kept directing you?”

“Maybe because I could have died? Maybe because I’d never do that to you, you piece of shit!” Tim shouted back, hands balled into fists.

Dick caught his shoulder, and it was good he did, because Damian snapped back, “Just because you’re stupid doesn’t mean I have to be!”

Tim’s frustration was enough to make him tremble under Dick’s hand, and he shouted, “This wouldn’t be so goddamn hard to live with if it weren’t for _you_!”

Damian sneered back, “I think _you’re_ the one who makes this quad deficient. If it were someone properly equipped to work well with people on _our_ level instead of you--”

“I’d rather have Tim than you, you little shit!” Jason snapped at Damian, which brought a defensive look to Damian’s posture.

“Everyone, deep breath!” Dick commanded, and almost begrudgingly, they all did so. He still had an arm across Tim’s shoulders, holding him back from attacking Damian. “Okay. We’re going to talk about what went wrong in there.”

Everyone was still very much angry, but Dick spoke again before anyone could. “First off, Jay, you did awesome. I appreciate that. I couldn’t have asked for a better partner.”

This caused Jason to deflate a little, nodding. “Yeah, well...”

“But you two. Both of you.” Dick looked between the pair. “First off, Damian, your instructions were vague, and you should have been next to Tim instead of shouting out commands from afar.”

Damian’s face darkened, a reddish flush, before Dick continued with, “And Tim, calling Damian names didn’t help the situation.”

“I didn’t call names,” Tim pointed out.

“Okay, maybe technically, but you said he was ‘being asinine’, among other things. I heard that. Neither of you wanted to come to a common ground.”

Tim’s mouth pinched, and he glared at the ground.

“But, responsibility falls on Damian in this case,” Dick said.

Damian snapped, “I was doing the best I could and he refused to work with me--”

“Damian, I don’t care if he was disagreeable. You were the one with the power in that situation, and you had his wellbeing in your hands. Even if it wasn’t something he wanted to do, he was trusting you to get him through, and you chose to abandon him in the middle of a life-threatening situation. I’m very disappointed,” Dick said, frowning at Damian.

This deflated Damian too, but in a different way than Jason. In a sad, wet cloth way. “No one ever appreciates me.”

“There’s nothing to appreciate!” Tim snapped at him, and Dick knew, in other situations, he was usually more charitable to Damian and tended to at least value the skills Damian had. That said, he had just been through _a lot_ of pain due to Damian.

“Jay, can you take Tim down to the cafeteria? It’s almost time for dinner. Get some for us.”

Jason nodded, almost grimly, and grabbed Tim’s arm. “Come on, I hear they just got a new stock of milk. You could probably use the calcium.”

Tim followed, muttering slightly under his breath, but going.

Dick turned to Damian, whose eyes were wet with angry tears. He wasn’t certain how to fix this, but he knew he had to. They shared living quarters. “Do you understand why we’re upset?”

“Because you’re all ridiculous,” Damian snapped back, “Because you expect me to just continue to be mistreated by him without ever retaliating.”

Dick pinched the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t sure how to deal with this, in many ways, because both of the boys had valid reasons to be upset, and also, both of them had been assholes to each other on more than one occasion.

Damian may have ‘started it,’ so to speak, but it was more complicated than that.

“Look, I’ll do my best to make sure you two don’t get partnered up, but it’s going to happen again. You both need to work out your differences, or you’ll going to get all of us killed. I don’t want either of you to be hurt by the other.”

Damian shrugged off the hand on his shoulder, and stalked off. He likely intended to go to their quarters.

Dick couldn’t help thinking, yet again, that they were going to die the instant they were put out to Space Walk.

**Author's Note:**

> If this doesn't make sense, that's fair.
> 
> In general, there's not much choice in being in the Quad, and they can't leave. Not sure if I'll continue this one.


End file.
